How to restructure a small business group with shared owners: decide what the group is for before you decide who reports to whom. In Australia, a group of two or three owner-operated businesses with the same shareholders usually grows into a structure nobody designed: one entity carries the admin, another carries the people, the owners sit on every decision in all of them, and every business pays for overhead it cannot see. A restructure that works starts with the operating questions, not the org chart: which functions are shared, who owns each one, how the cost is allocated, and what each business answers for on its own.
The plain version: you do not have a structure problem. You have three businesses and one management team, and nobody has written down which is which.
Scope
This is an operating restructure, not an insolvency one
Search for "business restructure" in Australia and most of what comes back is small business restructuring under the Corporations Act, safe harbour and turnaround firms. That is for businesses that cannot pay their debts. If your group is trading profitably but running badly, you need an operating restructure: roles, shared services, decision rights and reporting. Keep your accountant and lawyer in the room for entity structure, tax and employment law; the work below is the operating side only.
The first decision
Should we share finance and marketing across our businesses?
Usually yes for finance, payroll, HR administration, IT and the systems they run on. Usually no for anything a customer can tell the difference between: sales, delivery and the people who front the brand. Marketing sits in the middle; share the function and the tools, keep the message per business.
The test for each function is whether one owner can be accountable for it across the group and be measured on it. If a shared finance lead can be held to debtor days, month-end timing and a 13-week cash view for all three entities, share it. If "shared" would mean three owners still doing their own version, you have not shared anything, you have hidden the cost.
Then allocate the cost. A shared service that is free to the businesses using it will be overused and under-managed. Charge it on a simple driver, headcount or revenue, and show it on each business's P&L so every entity sees its true margin.
Roles
Who is responsible for what in a small business group
Draw the accountability chart for the whole group on one page, by seat not by person, 12 to 36 months out. Each seat has one owner, three to five accountabilities and two to four numbers. The owners' names will appear in several seats to begin with; that is the point. The chart shows you which seats you are holding by default and which you should be hiring, promoting or sharing.
Two rules that stop the chart drifting. Nobody reports to two people. And every shared function has exactly one name against it across the group, even if the person sits in one entity's payroll.
The money question
Top heavy: when there are more managers than the group can carry
"Top heavy" in Australian owner-operated groups usually means the leadership layer was built for the business each owner imagined, not the one they have. Three businesses each carrying their own operations manager, admin lead and bookkeeper can often run on one of each across the group.
Find it with a simple exercise: list every role above the front line, its loaded cost and the number it is accountable for. Any role with no number is overhead. Any number with two roles against it is duplication. The chart from the previous section tells you which seats survive.
Before anyone loses a job
An independent review before making staff redundant
If the restructure means roles disappear, do the review before the decision, not after. An independent operating review establishes that the role is genuinely no longer required because of how the business is now organised, documents the reasoning, and separates the structural question from the question of the individual. That is what a defensible restructure looks like, and it is also what makes it fair.
In Australia a redundancy is only a genuine redundancy if the job is no longer required because of changes in operational requirements, if the employer has consulted where an award or agreement requires it, and if redeployment within the business or an associated entity has been considered. Those tests are set by the Fair Work Act and they are your employment lawyer's territory. Ajility's part is the operating review that sits underneath them: the chart, the shared-services decision and the written reasoning that shows why the structure changed.
Rhythm
Running three businesses with one leadership team
After the chart comes the rhythm. One group leadership meeting a week on the shared scorecard and the shared decisions; one short meeting per business on its own numbers, chaired by whoever holds that seat, not by the owners as a committee. Quarterly, the owners reset the priorities for the group and each entity. That is the whole operating system, and it is what lets the owners stop being the switchboard between their own companies.
The same approach works for labour hire, scaffolding and plant hire groups where one entity employs the workforce and others hold the contracts: the operations review is about who owns utilisation, compliance and the weekly numbers across the entities, not about the legal wrapper.
How Ajility does it
Diagnose the group, then install the structure
Ajility's Full Diagnostic for a group reads all the entities together: a questionnaire across the leaders, site visits, the numbers, and catch-ups with the people who actually run things. It hands the owners a 90-day roadmap with the accountability chart, the shared-services decision and the order of work. Where the owners want it installed rather than handed over, the Operating System and Governance install runs the first quarter of the new rhythm with the leadership team until it holds. The entry price on the packages page covers one business and one site; groups are priced on scope after a call.
Start with the free Operating Scan, one per owner. Where two owners score the same group differently is usually where the restructure needs to begin.
Questions founders ask
Common questions
How do I restructure a small business group with shared owners?
- Start with the operating questions, not the org chart: which functions are shared and who owns each across the group, how shared cost is allocated to each entity's P&L, what each business answers for on its own, and the one-page accountability chart by seat. Keep your accountant and lawyer on entity structure, tax and employment law; this is the operating side.
Should we share finance and marketing across our businesses?
- Usually share finance, payroll, HR administration, IT and the systems behind them, under one accountable owner measured on debtor days, month-end timing and a 13-week cash view for all entities. Keep anything a customer can tell apart, sales and delivery, per business. Marketing: share the function and tools, keep the message per brand. Charge shared cost back on a simple driver.
What does top heavy mean in a small business group and what do I do about it?
- More leadership than the group's numbers can carry, usually because each business built its own operations manager, admin lead and bookkeeper. List every role above the front line with its loaded cost and the number it answers for: a role with no number is overhead and a number with two roles against it is duplication.
Do I need an independent review before making staff redundant in Australia?
- It is strongly advisable. A genuine redundancy under the Fair Work Act turns on the job no longer being required because of operational change, consultation where an award or agreement requires it, and consideration of redeployment. An independent operating review documents why the structure changed, before the decision about any individual. The legal tests are your employment lawyer's territory.
Who is responsible for what in a small business group?
- One owner per seat, three to five accountabilities and two to four numbers each, drawn on one chart for the whole group 12 to 36 months out. Nobody reports to two people, and every shared function has exactly one name against it across the group.